no title

Trinity Church turns back clock

Time capsule details history of now-shuttered sister parish

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoEric Albrecht | DISPATCH photosJeff McNealey, left, and the Rev. Richard Burnett of Trinity Episcopal Church unpack and examine the contents of a time capsule from its former sister church, St. Paul’s on E. Broad Street. The copper box dates from 1903.

More Articles

As Jeff McNealey unfolded a copy of
TheColumbus Evening Dispatch pulled from a 1903 time capsule, he read the top headline: “Riot
in Beirut caused the Powers much alarm.”

Next, he noted the front-page editorial cartoon, drawn by Billy Ireland, which showed young
people on Ohio State University’s campus. Its caption reads: “The football fever now takes
possession of our young men.”

Some things never change.

The Sept. 8, 1903, newspaper was among a trove of documents and other items found yesterday in
the time capsule — a copper box — pulled from the cornerstone of the now-shuttered St. Paul’s
Church on E. Broad Street Downtown.

McNealey and the Rev. Richard Burnett opened the time capsule Downtown at Trinity Episcopal
Church, where Burnett serves as rector and McNealey is chair of the endowment committee and a past
senior warden.

“We’re facing many of the same issues we had then,” McNealey said. “People then weren’t all that
different than people now.”

St. Paul’s closed in 2004. The Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio has since put the property on
the market, prompting the retrieval of the capsule.

Among the most historically valuable finds is a printer’s proof of a booklet detailing St. Paul’s
history from 1839 to 1903. Other documents offer the names of tradesmen laying the cornerstone and
building the church. Among photos is one of St. Paul’s first building, which was used from 1839 to
1882, at S. 3rd and E. Mound streets Downtown.

Also inside, neatly stacked and wrapped in paper were “coins for luck,” including an 1896
Liberty silver dollar, a quarter and a “very, very, very copper” penny, McNealey said. The coin
left a green powder on his fingers.

St. Paul’s was an offshoot of Trinity church, which was founded in 1817, Burnett said. Among
reasons for the split was a movement opposed by Trinity, but supported by members of St. Paul’s,
for Episcopal churches to revive some of the practices of the Catholic liturgy lost in the
Reformation.

Items in the capsule are in “amazing shape” for their age, McNealey said. An inventory will be
taken and the church will seek assistance to determine what can be transferred to electronic
records; they’ll be displayed in the church for a short time and then preserved.

McNealey said he also plans to gauge the archiving interest of the Columbus Historical Society,
of which he’s a past president, and the diocese, which he serves as a trustee of the church
foundation for physical assets.

Among other items found is a Columbus Board of Trade Bulletin that reports on efforts to defeat
smallpox, Masonic lodge registers from local communities, a YMCA booklet “For Young Men in and
about Columbus,” and a leather-bound booklet of the Mount Vernon Commandery of the Knights Templar,
dated 1818-1901.